War life
by Thegirlfromhufflepuff
Summary: Inside Hogwarts, everything seems to be at peace, but outside, a war is brewing. When the storm eventually hits, one girl and four boys with complete disregard for the rules are all it takes to build up resistance. But will they be on time?
1. The Prank

**Hey guys! This is my first ever fanfiction and I decided to start off with a series instead of a one-shot. Constructive criticism accepted and let me know if there are any mistakes. Enjoy!**

 **A/N: I own nothing except the plot and May Trim.**

Remus Lupin was late.

This was not something that you would usually associate with him; tardiness and Remus went together like salt on a wound. He had started his fifth year at Hogwarts like any other: outside the Library with Lily Evans and a handful of other Ravenclaws, waiting for Madam Pince to open the doors so that they could catch up on all the reading they hadn't done over the holidays.

As soon as Madam Pince dragged herself out of her bed, her hair still in rollers and muttering to herself angrily under her breath, he had wasted no time in rushing to the D.A.D.A section. He picked a tattered and dirty looking book titled _'The Madness within'_ and settled down in his favourite armchair located at the back of the Library. It was a cosy section with a view of the Quidditch pitch and an ample supply of pillows. Arranging the pillows around himself and setting the book on his lap, he had fallen into a deep slumber even before he could finish the first chapter.

As he hurried towards the Potions classroom, he cursed himself for his lack of forethought. Why hadn't he kept an alarm or asked his friends to wake him up? Not that they would have helped, he smiled weakly. Sirius often thought that entering the library was bad for his image and even the rare times he did, he had nightmares for weeks after. James would have been no help either, he often said that Remus needed to be late once in a while and earn the satisfaction of breaking the rules. They would have told Peter not to go into the Library and even if he did, he doubted Peter would have been able to find him. He had not told anyone about his favourite place; the less the merrier. So deep in his self-musing he was, that he ran straight into someone as he rounded a corner.

A resounding smack was heard that echoed across the corridor. Books and parchment flew everywhere and several ink wells shattered. Quills clattered to the ground and Remus lay sprawled on the cold floor. Every inch of his body was aching, especially his forehead and for a second, all he did was close his eyes and stay still. A nearby groan made him come back to reality and he opened his eyes.

A girl with mousy-brown hair and tanned skin was slowly sitting up and shaking her head amidst the clutter of quills and parchment. Her robes were splattered with ink as she stood up and surveyed the scene. The yellow and black patch on her robes stood out brightly against the blue ink, and a magnificent bruise on her left cheek matched the ink stains.

"Wow," she said, her voice shaky and wobbling on her feet. "I'm so sorry".

"My fault," Remus managed to wheeze, still too disoriented to stand up.

The girl held out her hand and Remus hoisted himself up. It was surprisingly warm and their hands lingered in each other's for a second too long. Cheeks burning, the two of them bent down to pick up the quills and parchment and clean up the ink as best as they could. Remus picked up her books and handed them to her just in time to see the words 'May Trim' written across each of them in neat, precise handwriting. The dot on top of the 'I' was in the shape of a little heart and the tail of the 'M' curved a little way before ending in a swirl. He refrained from rolling his eyes; such typical Hufflepuff-ishness. May then straightened up and looked around once more.

"We better get out of here before Filch gets us and feeds our guts to the Giant Squid" she said gravely, earning a small chuckle from Remus.

"I guess," he said. "See you around".

She waved at him and gave him a small smile, and the two of them set off briskly in opposite directions.

* * *

When Remus eventually reached the Potions classroom, lesson was already half over. Professor Slughorn frowned at him as he entered and waved him to his seat.

"Mr Lupin…." he said nodding at him, "That will be five points from Gryffindor and a detention. Please get to work, I expect a decent poison antidote at the end of the lesson."

Remus groaned, both at the state of his ink-stained robes and the detention. He walked over to where Peter was stirring something murky brown in a cauldron.

"Hey Wormtail" he said moodily, setting his satchel on the table. "You do know the potion is supposed to be pale blue right?" he added.

"Yeah, yeah I know but- "Peter began and trailed off as he took in Remus's appearance for the first time.

"Woah, Moony, what happened to you?" he asked in a loud whisper which, obviously, brought the attention of the two wizards in front of him.

Sirius Black and James Potter turned around and their faces morphed into identical masks of horror and amusement as they looked at their friend.

"Moony, were you trying to look like my History of Magic essay?" Sirius asked him with a grin that would, according to the female population of Hogwarts, made you want to collapse into a puddle.

"Ha, ha, very funny…." He sighed before telling the three of them about it, who were listening intently, holding back their laughter.

"You know, that girl, May or something, needs to be taught a lesson for making a Marauder late to class and getting him a detention." James said, musing his hair as he usually did when he was thinking hard.

"A few small pranks never hurt anyone," Sirius said happily, and the two of them grinned at each other.

Remus could almost see the cog wheels turning in their heads. "Don't you dare do anything, it was an accident!"

"It's okay" Peter said in what he thought as a convincing voice, making Remus slump back into his chair. "They won't do anything too bad", but even his face was apprehensive.

The rest of the lesson passed smoothly, with James and Sirius planning their prank happily with excited whispers and Remus sending furtive glances towards them. The result of this was an explosion from Remus and Peter's workbench and them having to clean it up 'the Muggle way', supervised by an irate Professor Slughorn.

* * *

The marauders walked into the Great Hall with varying degrees of excitement. Sirius and Peter were literally squirming, James was grinning and tousling his hair and glancing towards the Hufflepuff table where a certain brown haired girl was sitting and Remus was trying to hide his dismay behind a book.

The food appeared on the tables and there was a general clinking of cutlery and loud exclamations. Everyone hurried to fill up their plates; it was Shepard's pie night, a school favourite. Excited laughter and lazy conversations drifted around the room.

"Oi Evans," James shouted and rumpled his hair, looking towards a red haired girl talking to her friend. "Why don't you come on over and we can smooch".

Lily Evan tuned around and glared at him. "No thanks, Potter. That ego of yours is infectious, and I for once don't want to catch it and spend the rest of my life as an annoying toe-rag".

Sirius let out a bark of laughter, and before further hostilities could break out (however eagerly anticipated by the audience), a scream from the Hufflepuff table brought the entire attention of the Great Hall. May Trim was frozen the act of spooning potatoes into her mouth and her friend had drawn back and was screaming in horror. It was not a surprise considering what had happened.

Half of May's hair was frizzy and stood on one end, as though she had been electrified. The other half was bright purple and rapidly shrinking into her skull and stopped when it was about 5cm long. A bushy beard and moustache that would have made Dumbledore proud was growing from her face and twisting itself into small, neat plaits. But the most horrible (or funny) thing was the fact that her body had become a sickening shade of blue, striped with yellow.

The entire Hall burst out laughing as May stood up and stomped angrily to the Gryffindor table. She paused momentarily in front of a hysterical James and Sirius who were high-fiving each other.

"I'll get you back for this", she said in a menacing whisper, before stomping out of the hall. Remus could swear that her eyes lingered over him for a second or two and an unpleasant load of guilt settled in his stomach which made the pie in his mouth taste like cardboard.

"Well, fun's over guys, McGonagall looks pretty mad" Peter pointed out with tears of laughter still trailing down his cheeks.

Professor McGonagall was walking towards them with a sense of purpose in each step and awarded them with detention, though her quivering lips gave it away. James and Sirius were trying too hard to keep in their glee, to do anything other than nod obediently.

* * *

That night, Remus walked back to the Gryffindor common room after a particularly unpleasant detention with Slughorn. He had expected the usual lines, maybe accompanied by a lecture, but old Sluggers had other ideas. The last forty-five minutes was spent squishing buboter pus into small, glass vials and not a drop had to be spilt. Inhaling the fumes for all this time had taken away his appetite and he headed to the library to while away the time.

He stayed there until dinner was over, finishing the rest of his book. He had regained his good mood by the end of it, the book was especially good and the Library was quite, save for a few seventh years. Remus loved Hogwarts and all, but sometimes, the noise and commotion really got to his head. It felt nice to lounge and savour the peace and quiet.

He didn't set foot into the Common room until seven-thirty.

* * *

Sirius and James walked directly back to the Common room after dinner, the Library didn't interest them and they could hardly go outside to the Quidditch pitch in the dark. Well, they could, considering the fact that they had an Invisibility Cloak and a secret Map that showed all secret passages out, but they were too lazy to do so.

The only marauder in the Common Room was Peter and he was playing chess with a third-year. He looked up as the two of them entered and grinned when they sat beside him.

"Scram, kid. We need to talk." Sirius sent the frightened third-year away with an intimidating look and imperious wave of his hand. Peter frowned at him.

"I was winning! Where's Moony?"

"Where do you think?"

"Right, dumb question."

"Did you see Trim's friend when she changed colour?" James grinned, "She looked like Snivellus when we dumped that bucket of shampoo on his head!"

They laughed heartily before settling down into comfortable silence.

"Anyone up for a game of Exploding GoFish?" Sirius asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Sure, let me just get the cards"

James set off to the dormitory just as Remus came in through the portrait hole. He looked around the Common Room and smiled at Lily, before spotting Sirius and Peter and walking over to them. He plopped down in the seat James had just vacated.

"Ugh, if I have to see another Buboter pod again, I'll scream," he said, supressing a shudder.

Sirius thumped his back, almost knocking Remus off his seat. "Bad luck Moony, me and James just had to sort out old school records, worst thing was looking at the names of all those stick-in-the-muds." He frowned. "Where _is_ James? How long does it take to get a pack of cards?" He too got up and went up the stairs to the boy's dorm.

Peter and Remus leaned back against their chairs and surveyed the Gryffindor Common Room; it was a medley of chatter and lots of laughing, with an occasional frown, as someone yet again tried to do their homework in the din. A high pitched scream from the doorway through which Sirius had just left brought the attention of the entire Common Room. Heads turned towards the noise and more than one eyebrow was raised.

The two of them jumped to their feet, chairs falling over behind them. With a worried glance at each other, the raced up the stairs to the boy's common room. They burst through the doors just as the screaming stopped.

Sirius was leaning against the wall, one hand pressed over his heart and James was gingerly touching his bed spread as though it would explode any second. Remus's eyes went wide as he looked at the mess in front of him and Peter's mouth fell open.

Every inch of the room had been re-decorated; save for the Remus's bed and the area around it. Anything that was red previously was now yellow and anything gold was now black: Hufflepuff colours. Even James's Quidditch robes, which was lying over the bed-post, was now patterned yellow and black. They didn't need clues to know who the culprit was; above Remus's bed was an illegible scribble, with an unmistakable heart halfway across it, and ending with a swirl.

For the first few seconds, nobody spoke. And then-

"Wow" Sirius said with a nervous laugh, "How on earth did _she_ get in _here?"_

"This must have taken ages, when did _she_ get in without the whole _bloody_ tower seeing her?" James asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"How come your stuff isn't destroyed?" Peter pointed an accusing finger at Remus.

Remus put up his hands in mock-defence as everyone in the room glared at him. "I told you not to annoy _her_!"

Sirius sat down on his bed with the air of someone who had just lost a battle. "This is terrible. Even _we_ haven't managed to pull off something this spectacular." He plucked on his bee-coloured bed-spread. "How on earth are we supposed to change all this back? I'm feeling nauseous already!" he wailed.

" _You'll_ just have to go and apologise tomorrow. " Remus replied sternly, folding his arms across his chest. "It's the only way out"

"But our reputation! The marauders' names will be tarnished forever!" James and Sirius pretended to faint (or they might have seriously almost fainted).

"Ok, here's the plan. Tomorrow, during breakfast, we are going to briefly apologise to _her,_ and tell _her_ that if she changes the room back, she can be our pranking apprentice."

There was a brief silence during which everyone's eyes were still on Peter.

"That might have been the smartest thing you have ever said, Wormtail" James said appreciatively.

Peter beamed.

"What makes you think she will want to be our apprentice?" Remus asked, with a sceptical raise of his eyebrows.

"Shush Moony, you're ruining the moment!"

"Yeah, who _wouldn't_ want to be our apprentice?"

Remus merely sighed before changing into his pyjamas and climbing into his bed. He was already dreading tomorrow.

* * *

 **So there you have it folks! Warning: I get discouraged easily and might even stop the story, purely out of procrastination and laziness. Comments appreciated!**


	2. The Apology

**Disclaimer: I still do not own the Harry Potter series. Sigh.**

The next morning was both extremely mortifying (for the marauders), and highly amusing (for May).

It had started of pretty well; the plan was that Sirius would go and talk to her first and soften her up with his 'lady charms'. James had been extremely vocal at this point, insisting that he had the same amount of 'lady charms' as Sirius did and that he was only refraining from using them because he didn't want Lily to bonk him on the head (not that she would care).

Once she was mellow enough, Sirius would do the secret signal (a conscious rubbing of the tip of his nose), which would be the cue for the rest of them to enter.

All in all, the plan reminded Remus of a Muggle movie he had watched once, in which they had a similar sort of plan for handling dangerous explosives.

* * *

Sirius swaggered into the Great Hall confidently and plonked down at the Hufflepuff table, earning a lot of suspicious looks and glares. He picked a grape from the fruit bowl before turning towards May with a smirk on his face. She, in turn, resolutely ignored him, spooning cereal into her mouth and reading a book at the same time.

Slightly disheartened, he straightened up and cleared his throat with a slight cough. At the sound, she turned to look at him with a sweet smile on her face.

"Oh hello," she said in a sickeningly sweet voice, "I didn't see you there".

He ignored her untruth.

"Well played….that was a fantastic prank. You really have an eye for that sort of thing." he said, remembering the tip on compliments from _12 Fail Safe Ways to Charm Witches._

She just looked back at him with a bored expression.

"Are you done yet, Black? Your friends are trying to talk to you," she said, pointing to where James, Peter and Remus were hiding. Peter was mouthing if it was okay to come, accompanied by exaggerated hand gestures. Sirius rubbed his nose, both from embarrassment and exasperation at Peter's subtlety.

By the time he realized that he had just unconsciously given the secret sign, it was too late. The three of them had made their way over to the table.

"Come and sit down, there's plenty of space," May said, patting the empty seat next to her. Remus and Sirius flanked either side of her whereas James and Peter sat directly opposite.

There was a moment of awkward silence, until Sirius, as always, managed to break it.

"Look, that was a great prank and all, but you really need to change our dorm back," he said, abandoning all pretence _and_ the plan.

"And if you do, then you can be our pranking apprentice," Peter added proudly.

May's eyebrows were raised so high that they were almost in danger of disappearing into her hairline.

"What makes you think I want to be _your_ apprentice?" she asked.

"I'm not going to say I told you so, but I told you so."

"Shut up Moon-face,"

Remus just rolled his eyes and focused his attention on the toast in front of him.

"I'm not going to change your dorm back until I get a proper apology," May said, folding her arms in front of her chest.

James cast a furtive look around before lowering his voice. Their 'little' conversation was drawing a lot of attention and eavesdropping. After all, why _would_ the most popular guys at school be talking to a _Hufflepuff_ , let alone be apologising? (A lot of the young witches and wizards had very keen ears).

"Fine. I…. _we're_ sorry," he said in a sulky whisper.

May replied with a dry chuckle. "That's not the type of apology _I_ accept,"

"Well, how _do_ we apologise to you, Oh Great and Mighty May Trim?" Sirius asked. His patience was rapidly running out.

May leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Sirius's eyes went wide and he hastily shook his head.

"I'm not doing _that_!" he hissed and shook his head, his black hair falling over his eyes and making the girls around him sigh.

"Then, by all means have fun going to sleep in a Hufflepuff beehive," she shrugged, unconcerned, and picked up a piece of toast.

Sirius gave her a half-hearted glare. In truth, he was grudgingly impressed that a _Hufflepuff_ of all people could be _this_ devious. And he did like attention.

He leapt up onto the table, and shouts of surprise from everyone followed suit. He cleared his throat a straightened up.

"Ladies, gentlemen and Remus," he began, ignoring Remus's offended _hey_ , "Yesterday at dinner time, me and my comrades Jamie and Peter here have wrongly treated this young, beautiful lady near me. I would like to apologize and also add that I and my friends are dunderheads who have no idea how to properly treat a lady. I swear that I will never be the annoying toe wart that I am, ever again."

May gave a pointed look towards James and Peter, who also stood up, with some grumbling.

"As Sirius said, we would like to apologise to the git…uh, _lady_ in front of us and not be the annoying toe-rag that I am." James said, pretending that he was extremely ashamed.

"I will also stop assisting my dunderhead friends in their amateur pranks and think before I act," Peter added, with a hesitant look at James and Sirius.

This might have been an impressive speech had it not been for the fact that the owl post came in at that exact moment and all three of them fell off the table with loud shrieks. The resulting chaos that followed took several minutes to sort out, as everyone was laughing too hard to do anything other than hold their stomachs. The screeches of the owls and 'colourful'words of the three marauders as they gingerly rubbed their backsides added to the din, and it wasn't until Dumbledore, with his eyes twinkling, clapped his hands and that the laughter subsided.

"There, happy now?" Peter asked and the three of them turned towards Remus and May with frowns on their faces.

May's face was flushed from laughter as she nodded weakly at them and Remus still had tears in his eyes.

"That was brilliant. Okay, apology accepted, I'll change your dorm back."

"Would have been great if you said that _before_ I ruptured my spine," Sirius grumbled, but then gave her a grin.

May stood up and grabbed her satchel, waved at the marauders and made her way out. Her left hand was still clutching her stomach as the marauders went back to the Gryffindor table to regain what little dignity they had left.


	3. Author notice

**Hey guys! Important news I needed to tell you guys. I'm taking down this account, since I'm starting up a new one with me and my friend from school. We will both be writing fanfictions on there, although mine will mostly be Harry Potter AU's and her's will be Percy Jackson/Heros of Olympus ones. This story and my other one will be continued on there, so you can follow the story once it's up and running on the other account. I'll leave some details below.**

 **Name of the account: KeeandTee**

 **URL: Easy:** ~keeandtee

 **Permanent:** u/7533439/

 **Thanks guys!**


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